Minhaj—a Daily Show correspondent whose profile got a bump after his blistering performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month—has quickly established himself as a funny, thoughtful, and all-around essential voice in the political landscape. But Homecoming King sheds light on a different, more personal side of Minhaj’s talents. In a live performance taped in his hometown of Davis, California in January, Minhaj describes growing up as the eldest child of Muslim immigrants from India, weaving a funny, heartbreaking, and intimate narrative built around his most personal experiences.

In conjunction with the first trailer for Homecoming King (which you can see below), I spoke to Minhaj about comedy, Trump, and the American Dream.

You’ve been doing some version of this show since at least 2015. Can you walk me through the process of putting Homecoming King together, from your earliest concept to this polished Netflix special?
A few years ago, I started branching out into the comedic storytelling community. It’s a little bit outside of the traditional standup comedy club format—which is two drinks, x amount of laughs per minute, and a mixtape grab-bag of jokes that make up your act. But I started seeing more acts in the U.K. and throughout Europe, where there would be these entire shows dedicated to a central theme or a topic. What’s great is that it allows the performer to show all sorts of different notes: comedic, or pensive, or thoughtful. It just allows you to have a more in-depth experience.

I started going to The Moth, which is this great story-slam. And I got really involved with that community. And Catherine Burns, the creative director of The Moth, said, "Some of these stories are really special. You should try to put them together." [Homecoming King] is so different than what I do on The Daily Show. The Daily Show is such a cathartic release—but it kind of ages like bread. The news is moving so fast. The political zeitgeist is a moving target.

But when you’re talking about personal stories, the shelf life is really long. It’s pretty evergreen. These universal themes—love, the American Dream, forgiveness—these things have been in American culture for a very long time.

In exploring those "universal themes," you get very, very personal about some pretty raw experiences you’ve had.
A lot of the emotions come from pretty serious parts of my life. You know… I talk about my dad having a heart attack, and still, when I think about that day… We all have those moments in our lives, that are very clear and distinct: "Oh, my life was different after that day." And because they were really powerful moments in my life—the first time I fell in love, the first time I came to grips with the mortality of my parents—those were all really powerful emotions that I could tap into. Because they were life-changing experiences for me.

A lot of the time, we talk about issues in this country like race and identity—and they’re very loaded topics that people debate ad infinitum. But when it’s a personal story, you can’t really debate it. It’s like, "Hey, this is my experience. This is what it’s like to be brown in America for me. This is what it’s like to be a first-generation immigrant in this country for me. This is my experience of my family, trying to pursue the American Dream." And you can’t really deny that! I think it allows us to have a deeper conversation. Rather than getting into numbers or statistics, or articles from your Facebook news feed, there’s something so powerful about, "I experienced this. This happened to me."

Back in January—when we interviewed you about surviving life under Trump—you suggested finding "some sort of middle ground where partisanship comes off the table and we can collectively agree that, hey—this isn't for the benefit of our country, whatever political team you're on." It’s now May. How has that plan been working for you?
I think, as a country, we’re really grappling with: "What is our narrative?" I touched on this at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. If you want to survive the age of Trump, you’re going to have to think like a minority. You’re gonna need to be twice as good for half the credit. When one of you messes up, they blame the entire group. And when when one of you actually manages to do good work, they go, "Hey, man. You’re one of the good ones!" And you have to smile and say, "Thank you." But you persevere, because the dream of achieving the nation’s full potential is worth that downside. You struggle through that.

I think the thing our country is grappling with is this question: Are we the Nativist Narrative, or are we the Immigrant Narrative? Is it these hard-and-fast ideals of Jesus, and football, and Build-the-Wall, and America First? Or are we the immigrant narrative—the great marketplace of ideas? "Come one, come all, regardless of creed, color, class, or sexuality! This is a meritocracy based on ideas and experiences, and may the best ones win!"

"If you want to survive the age of Trump, you’re going to have to think like a minority. You’re gonna need to be twice as good for half the credit."

And I think our country—and even countries in Europe right now—are all struggling to find out the answer to that. I’m fighting for the latter. And Homecoming King is an ode to the latter. Despite the negatives, an Indian-American Muslim kid named Hasan Minhaj fought to achieve his dreams, and gets to do comedy in America, and love who he chooses to love, and pursue the career he chose for himself. I think that’s pretty incredible. That’s the story I’m presenting. And that’s the narrative I’m fighting for.

So you still think we’ll survive.
Yes. [laughs] But I have skin in the game. I want to survive.

Well, that leads to the next obvious question: How do you think this will end?
[laughs] That’s a very open-ended question. I consider myself to be… an angry optimist. What I mean… is that I am not happy with the state of where the health-care bill stands. I’m not happy with how the James Comey stuff is going. I’m not happy with the current state of how things are. However, I do believe in—and am optimistic about—this country’s flexibility, and its ability to fight, and correct things which are unjust. It is a flawed system—but I do believe it is one of the best systems. And when put to the test, I ultimately believe in the goodness of people. In that marketplace of ideas, I truly believe the best ideas will win.

I know we’re living in a time when people [will read this] and be like, "No." [laughs] And look: Three or four years from now, when we’re all living in the apocalypse, I may be like, "Why did I say that in that GQ interview?" But I do believe in the goodness of humanity, and I do believe that will eventually outweigh cruelty or xenophobia or racism. That’s the long arc people have been taking, and that I hope our country takes.

Looking beyond the specifics of our current situation, and thinking systematically: Can you think of anything that might actually improve the overall state of American politics?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I think that we need more than a two-party system. People feel like they need to be dumped into one of two monoliths: The Democratic Party or the Republican Party. But a lot of the ideals that the GOP is dealing with [now] aren’t traditional quote-unquote "Republican" values. [Those people] are being lumped together under a nationalist leader. And the same thing happened to the Democratic Party, between Hillary and Bernie.

It’s like the different between an off-the-rack suit and a bespoke suit. People are like, "I’ve gotta fit into this off-the-rack situation? But I believe in this socialist candidate! Or this nationalist candidate. Or this progressive candidate!" What if there were different parties that actually represented the different ideals the populace has? That, to me, seems like a very simple solution.